


Hold Me Tight and Fear Me Not, I'll Be a Gentleman

by justaholmesboy



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Archaeology, Fawnlock, Folk Music, Folklore, M/M, Singing, basically me being a massive nerd and kind of showing off, shoosh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2013-11-28
Packaged: 2018-01-02 20:23:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1061217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justaholmesboy/pseuds/justaholmesboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What's so important for Fawnlock to drag John through the forest at night in November?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold Me Tight and Fear Me Not, I'll Be a Gentleman

Distant melancholy tones hung from every particle in the air. John's shivers were joined by a new pale ripple of his spine as he whirled around to see ... Nothing. He managed to reason it was just fatigue playing tricks on his solitary mind as he got back to moving the last of the wood. He rubbed the heel of his palm into his blurry eyes, not caring about the thin layer of dirt covering the calluses. Something seemed strangely familiar about the noises carried by the wind, the low and penetrating sound making him think of Fawnlock. But he had never heard the fawn say anything other than a few jumbled sentences at a time and very occasionally a full debate from the one mouth. Now wasn't the time to be worrying about the silly creature though, but John did expect him to show up sometime soon. The sky carried the first snows of winter, bruised clouds moaning under their load. Fawnlock was eccentric but by no stretch stupid so with a cottage available he was sure to appear.

Sure enough, just as John had changed into his pyjamas, the windowpanes rattled with the scratches and taps of the creature's begging. He all but fell through the door, with the first snowflakes clinging to the thick layers of his fur.  
“Evening...” John said, hardly trying to hide his smirk as Fawnlock steadied himself and tried to look dignified. He grunted and shook himself from mop of dark curls to frantically waving tail, furry ruff practically floating in the air with the movement. John had noticed very soon after meeting the fawn that he didn't so much as walk anywhere but, rather, would glide from place to place on his impossibly spindly legs. He was demonstrating this ethereal stride now, before flopping backwards onto the sofa and squirming to make himself comfortable, flexing his spine and paddling his limbs in the air. It reminded John of a child having a tantrum, and he smiled slightly before walking to the shelves at the far side of the room.  
Fawnlock seemed to be making an effort to ignore him, steely blue eyes fixed on the flames lapping the columns of the fireplace, luminous reflections dancing in the grey. It didn't take long for that to wear off, and his gaze alone shifted on his static face to look sideways at John, half through his eyebrows.  
“What you doing?”  
John turned for a second to look at him before carrying on going through the cases on the shelf, each one making a slight click as they hit the previous when flipped.  
“I was going to put on some music.”  
Fawnlock wrinkled his nose.  
“Do you not like music?”  
Fawnlock ignored him again.  
John deemed it not worth bothering with and put on the CD, it was an old favourite. The wave of nostalgia washed over him as he took in a deep breath and turned back to the fire. He had moved the sofa closer to the fire before Fawnlock had arrived and he was glad of it; it didn’t look like the fawn was moving anytime soon. He picked up the hooves and sat himself beneath them before letting them go. They hovered for a split second before lowering to his lap. John had closed his eyes and was making an effort to enjoy the music. It was going very well and he soon felt like he didn’t have the energy to move so when the CD looped he just let it play again. This second play-through made him open his eyes though.  
He had assumed Fawnlock was asleep, simply because he wasn’t having to deal with some kind of distraction, whether that be having his hair ruffled, being poked or prodded, being talked at or some other nonsense the fawn was fixated on for the day. John definitely did not expect him to be paying attention to music he seemed to disinterested in less than an hour before, let alone well enough to hum along with the second time.  
He was now sure that it was Fawnlock’s voice he had been hearing bouncing off the trees. There was something enchanting about it that half sent shivers across his body and half made him want to curl up and sleep for as long as possible. The world narrowed to nothing but the heat of the fire, the snug sofa and the hex of the deep voice.  
Bright morning light filtered through the thick air and John yawned loudly. He went to stretch too but found that he had been tangled in the lanky fawn’s limbs as he had become limp with drowsiness. Either that or Fawnlock had been using him as a blanket. His peculiar and sluggish train of thought was broken by a finger jabbing him in the belly.  
“You were asleep.”  
“It seems I was ...”  
John sat up and stretched as fully as he could, twinge in his shoulder making him wince a little. The pull of coiled muscles woke his brain up a little more, and when the sleep had cleared from his eyes he looked back to Fawnlock. He had his arms folded and was looking at him like a scolded child. Suddenly he leaped up from his nest of cushions and stalked to the door.  
“Be back later...”  
John stared after Fawnlock for a few seconds, mouth agape and unable to figure out what had just happened. He shook his head. Strange.

Fawnlock tore through the undergrowth. The cloud of annoyance was busy in his mind but he wasn’t quite sure why. He had been singing; singing for John. And then he was asleep. Did he do it wrong? Was it bad timing? Did John not like it? He would have to try harder next time, he had a plan already.

John had no idea what Fawnlock was doing. He had told him to wait and wait he did. It was getting pretty late, sky turning a myriad of colours in the chill November air, and he hoped he would not have to wait much longer. Fawnlock reappeared from outside and ushered John onto his feet and towards the door.  
“Be warm, it’s cold out.” The fawn told him in his wobbly English, while pushing his coat, scarf, gloves and boots into his arms.  
“We’re going out?”  
“Something to show you.”  
John frowned at Fawnlock but didn’t argue. When he stood up, his hand caught by a large strong hand and he was lead down the mud path. He didn’t really have much of an idea where they were going or, after a little while, where they were at all. Fawnlock was being careful to make sure John could keep up, most of the time with a tight grip on his hand. He was deceptively strong for such a spindly creature and John was well aware that his hand could be crushed in a matter of seconds. As he got used to the ambling pace, joined to forcefully to another being, he stopped catching his feet on trees and was beginning to enjoy the beauty of the dim forest.  
There was very little light reaching the floor but his eyes were adjusting nicely to the gloom, and it was getting easier to pick out the intricate details of nature. Ivy was present nearly everywhere he looked, settling over rock and tree alike, creating a shining green blanket of tangled emerald leaves. The trees themselves looked ancient, waving and ragged and climbing far above their heads. The last of the autumn colours were clinging to the lofty branches, whispering in the biting breeze. John’s eyes were so busy darting around at where they had come from that it took him a second to notice they had come to a road.  
They scrambled down the bank, which John realised had been a wall at some point many years ago. Out in the open it was easier to see how dark it was out here, with the yawning abyss above them making the road glisten with colour. The last of the sun’s light was catching on the columns of purple cloud and staining them like fire reaching skyward. The first stars were becoming visible and breaking up the vast expanse of blue. The lamp post a little way from them was adding a resonant amber tone to the scene, lighting a magnificent oak tree from beneath so all of its cracks and fissures were evident in stark contrast. Fawnlock tugged a little on his wrist and they stood beneath the post. He felt his hand drop to his side and he pulled it in close at the loss of warmth from the fawn’s palm. He seemed to be thinking. John hadn’t noticed before but Fawnlock was carrying a little bundle of firewood. He was about to question it but he felt the gentle pull on his coat sleeve and heard the faint tapping of boots and hooves on tarmac. He let himself vanish back into the forest.  
They walked for another five or so minutes before he bumped into the soft fur. Fighting the urge to sneeze, John looked up at Fawnlock quizzically.  
“Down there.”  
John peered around the torso and into a gaping hole in the floor. He cleared his throat and edged towards the slope. He saw Fawnlock roll his eyes ever so slightly and felt a hand dig through one of the pockets in his coat before the fawn held up a torch to light the way down. John was pretty sure this could have been a very dodgy situation but for some unearthly reason he did feel very safe with the other large hand clamped around his wrist. The descent was a little unsteady but he came out of it unharmed, and was rapidly joined by Fawnlock as he coasted down the dirt hill on long legs braced close to his body. He was being dragged a little further, but must have unconsciously resisted.  
“It’s safe, I know the cave.”  
And he yielded. They only walked for a few more seconds before crawling under a low arch and coming to a strange little cavern, almost like a room. It was not very big and John could not stand up straight, but there was space to move around. Fawnlock was busily brushing leaf litter and other detritus out of the way but turned to John and pushed down on his shoulder, urging him to sit. John plonked to the stone floor and watched. He had cleared a big space and was placing the bundle of wood in it. John was far too interested to protest when a hand went into another one of his pockets and brought out a box of matches; Fawnlock must have put them there earlier. Soon there was a small fire creating a pool of smoke in the ceiling of the little cave. John stared around now he could get a proper look. It was a strange looking cave, and it didn’t look natural either. The walls were rugged but strangely even, and on closer inspection there was a layer of carvings in them. The most noticeable were the little rings and dots, carved fairly deep and wide. Looking closer, there were numerous sets of spirals parallel with his eyes and as his eyes tracked up the walls, he saw rows of zigzags running around the very top of the walls.  
Fawnlock coughed a little and his attention snapped back to his companion. He had closed his eyes and was breathing heavily. John opened his mouth to ask what was going on but the words stuck in his throat when the fawn began humming. His already authoritative voice commanded all of the air in the room to resonate with his tones. Literally all of it he noted, as Fawnlock gently gestured up mid-song to the still pooling smoke above them. It was vibrating too, and changed the waves as he changed his pitch. John realised that he was clearly experimenting a little but even John was fully aware of when he was successful. Fawnlock held the note for as long as he could. The smoke was vibrating in graceful broad waves, matching the zigzags on the ceiling almost exactly. John was suddenly very aware that his mouth was hanging open. The meaning was suddenly very apparent; those patterns were the signature of voices from centuries, possibly millennia, ago. His heart was filled with the wonders of humanity, heritage and ingenuity. He couldn’t help but ask himself if anyone besides Fawnlock knew about the place.  
The noise faded out; he hastily reclosed his mouth and looked down in time to see Fawnlock snuffle his nose and grin like a wolf.  
“So ... you do like music?”  
“Yes.”  
“And you can sing?”  
“Yes.”  
John hesitated for a second.  
“Can you sing for me?”  
Fawnlock looked taken aback, truly like a deer caught in the headlights with wide eyes almost entirely washed-out in the strong light. He mumbled to himself, gaze falling to the floor before looking John straight in the eyes.  
“I thought you didn’t like it.”  
Suddenly his attitude from this morning was crystal clear. John chuckled and tried to look apologetic.  
“I do! I was just tired last night is all, I’d love to hear you sing.”  
Fawnlock puffed out his chest and the air once again vibrated with the baritone voice. John lent back against the cave wall and stared into the fire absentmindedly, lost in the haunting voice one more. It was a few minutes before he recognised the tune but he waited for Fawnlock to finish before saying anything.  
“That was Tam Lin, wasn’t it?”  
“Was it?”  
John frowned and just blinked for a second. “You don’t know?”  
Fawnlock slumped back a little and twisted his thumbs over each other rhythmically in a way that reminded John of a machine, like his fidgeting was matching the gears of his mind working.  
“The songs I know are from my kin, years back, from when humans were friendly to our kind. I do not know meanings or names.”  
“Would you like to know?”  
The fawn nodded before settling his head in John’s lap. John forgetfully began twirling the curls and running his fingers down the soft fur, letting the story fill his mind and the cave. Fawnlock sighed heavily and turned the broad ears to the sound of the voice.  
“It’s about a noble woman who ends up falling in love with a mythical man called Tam Lin, and when she becomes pregnant with his child the noble court urges her to abort the pregnancy. Tam Lin doesn’t want her to and reveals that he’s under a Fairy Queen’s spell and he is human. He promises that if she holds him tight and doesn’t let go then the fairies will give up, but they’ll turn him into dangerous animals first. She doesn’t give up and the fairies let him go.”  
Fawnlock was silent for a few minutes. John jumped by Fawnlock abruptly sitting and looking him dead in the in the eyes once more.  
“I promise I am not a fairy trap.”  
John wasn’t sure what to do at first, but just dissolved into laughter and hugged the fawn tightly.  
“I’ll hold you tight no matter what, you silly creature.”

**Author's Note:**

> first work put up here woo!  
> and i'm sorry for the excessive bullshitting  
> time to explain myself  
> starting with the idea, it was kind of a mindbunny after finding all my old folk music. namely the Folk Alley version by Anaïs Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer which is gorgeous oh my. anyway. (the title is a line of the lyrics just so you know)  
> the headcanon i had buzzing around for a while was;  
> "what if at the time he met John the only fluent passages of human language Fawnlock could speak aside from the bits he learned from the campers were actually old folk songs his family had been collecting for thousands of years, so when John first gets him to sing the first thing that springs to mind is like a Viking hymn or the original Scarborough Fair or a Gaelic ballad or a Border wars song or or or yeah"  
> i settled on Tam Lin because its a song i love a lot.  
> the setting is a bit weird i don't really know where it is but most of the places are plausibly pretty local to me so maybe Forest of Dean? idk? doesn't really matter?  
> anyway, as far as the actual archaeology goes there is real evidence for zigzag patterns being used in this way in passage tombs and caves, discovered by experimental archaeologists trust me i'm an arch student ;) but yeah it amazes me like wow that's the written signature of real people's voices??? wow.
> 
> either way i like to think that Fawnlock also knows The Dowie Dens of Yarrow, Heyr Himna Smiður, Scarborough Fair and the tune to Greensleeves at LEAST.  
> asdfghjkl  
> any feedback is welcome i'm a writing novice art is more my dealio tbh  
> thanks for taking the time ;;


End file.
